Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. – Revelation 1:19

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 20, 2018): Revelation 1

Aerospace Engineer Werner von Braun (1912-1977) in the mid-Twentieth Century predicted: “that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.” It is easy to simply say that he was wrong, but what is often harder to ask is why. Is it possible that, if we had maintained our drive into space with the same intensity as we had during the space race in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, Werner’s prophecy might have become a reality? Or maybe the idea of having a baby in space is simply not healthy for either the child or the mom was something that, at the time, Werner von Braun simply did not understand? But, while standing at his particular place in time, a child born on the moon by the turn of the Twenty-First Century seemed like a possibility. Ultimately, however, we are still waiting for any long-term habitation of earth’s only satellite, and it has been decades since any earthling has even set foot on the moon. (Of course, if you believe that the moon landings were faked, then we have never set foot on the moon.)

When Werner von Braun made his bold prediction, he drew a line from the past to the present, and then extend that line into the future. In the middle of the Twentieth Century, a lot was going on in space research and, by the sixties, all of the focus was on the moon. And I think the belief was that if we could reach the moon, and have a man walk on the moon, then why wouldn’t we want to stay there.

But priorities changed. The Space Shuttle program pioneered the idea of reusable space vehicles; the Space Station pioneered longer-term space living and research. And the moon faded from the focus that we gave it during the mid-Twentieth Century. For this reason, von Braun’s prediction failed to materialize.

John is instructed to write down what he has seen, what is now, and what is yet to come. And John’s Revelation (not Revelations) is a strange mixture of the past, present, and future. It is cryptic, and we don’t know what it all means. But we must remember that another part of the discussion is that John’s Revelation was written near the end of First Century, and at least some of the predictions of John have been fulfilled while others are obviously waiting for the end of time. How much of this prophecy has been fulfilled? That is the question that we discuss. And there is no answer.

When reading Revelation, the best advice that I have is to hold truth lightly. And throughout the reading of the letter, breath the prayer that John closes this work with; Come, Lord Jesus. And throughout the process of your reading, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen!

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 2